Bears 2018 Offseason: Matt Nagy Hired as Head Coach

[Brian]

watched some of the Mack press conference, conservatively every other question was awful (ex. DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE '85 BEARS????)

 

Earned some of his guaranteed money having to sit through that on little or no sleep with a game to prepare for in 1 week.

[WrigleyField 22]

Grasu waived, Sheehan to IR w/hopes to return midseason

So they are at 52 now? Must have been trying to get something done with a Grasu trade. Shaheen, they would have had to put on the original 53 man to be able to designate him for return.

 

Waiver wire at S or DL maybe?

[Wilson A2000]

Grasu waived, Sheehan to IR w/hopes to return midseason

 

Crap, didn’t know the injury was that bad

[Thrilho]

I'm preaching to the choir here, but I can't believe how much of the general football world (fans and punditry) don't realize that the Bears are going to be good this year.

 

They had a lot of good pieces in place that were overshadowed by some of the worst lineup black holes I've ever seen at the NFL level, which allowed teams to gameplan to account for the good players too easily. That's not the same as having no good players.

 

There's gonna be a lot of "breakout" years for guys now that the entire 22 is competent enough to be accounted for. God I cannot wait to see what the rest of this defense can do when Mack is commanding a double-team at all times and they're playing with a lead.

This post is awesome

[UMFan83]

I'm preaching to the choir here, but I can't believe how much of the general football world (fans and punditry) don't realize that the Bears are going to be good this year.

 

They had a lot of good pieces in place that were overshadowed by some of the worst lineup black holes I've ever seen at the NFL level, which allowed teams to gameplan to account for the good players too easily. That's not the same as having no good players.

 

There's gonna be a lot of "breakout" years for guys now that the entire 22 is competent enough to be accounted for. God I cannot wait to see what the rest of this defense can do when Mack is commanding a double-team at all times and they're playing with a lead.

 

It’s really going to come down to how good Trubisky is. Feels like all the other pieces are in place to be successful.

 

And actually even if Trubisky is meh I’m sure Nagy can gameplan around it and put together a competent enough offense to go with a dominating defense

[raw]

I'm preaching to the choir here, but I can't believe how much of the general football world (fans and punditry) don't realize that the Bears are going to be good this year.

 

They had a lot of good pieces in place that were overshadowed by some of the worst lineup black holes I've ever seen at the NFL level, which allowed teams to gameplan to account for the good players too easily. That's not the same as having no good players.

 

There's gonna be a lot of "breakout" years for guys now that the entire 22 is competent enough to be accounted for. God I cannot wait to see what the rest of this defense can do when Mack is commanding a double-team at all times and they're playing with a lead.

 

It’s really going to come down to how good Trubisky is. Feels like all the other pieces are in place to be successful.

 

And actually even if Trubisky is meh I’m sure Nagy can gameplan around it and put together a competent enough offense to go with a dominating defense

 

Trubisky just has to not be stupid for the Bears to be a really good team. Trubisky was not stupid last year and was playing games with no receivers. He basically has to be Alex Smith. Under Nagy, KC basically averaged half their yards after the catch. Smith just got rid of the ball and let the athletes run with it. Just be accurate in the short range, take checkdowns if they are given, take chances deep when they present themselves.

[Thrilho]

Yup, what you think of the Bears depends mostly on what you think of Trubisky. I think he’s the best non-Rodgers QB in the division by large margin and he’ll prove it this year.

 

Cousins and Stafford had on average 97 QB ratings the last 3 years with a 3:1 TD to INT rate (85:30) while throwing for about 4,500 yards per season. Trubisky is not better than that by a large margin.

Gentlemen’s bet on who scores the most fantasy points between the three in a standard league?

This is actually a pretty lazy response that I made on my phone while I was out. The reason I pick Trubisky over the other two is that I think he’s going to prove to be a winner where the other two have been losers up to this point in their careers. So it was silly for me to try to frame the comparison in terms of fantasy ratings, as it would have been silly for me to frame it in terms of QBR.

 

Cousins has a 26-30-1 record with a playoff record of 0-1. Stafford also hasn’t won a playoff game and leading into the 2017 season he had a record of 5-46 against teams over .500. I could probably find it updated for the most recent season but I can’t imagine the 9-7 playoff missing season moved the needle that much.

 

Cousins and Stafford have had some decent enough seasons, but a lot of both of their yards have been wracked up in garbage time trying to catch up. The last two years Stafford has averaged 26.5 TD / 10 Int. Cousins has average 26 TD / 12.5 Int. That is middle of the road production, in my opinion. Especially considering how long they’ve been in the league and in their current offenses. Cousins maybe hasn’t had that much to work with but he really hasn’t elevated the team. Stafford has basically been junk, IMO. Not a dumpster fire but not elite production and not capable of regular winning in any capacity despite having consistently good offensive skill players and scheme plus an intermittently good defense.

 

The guys I’d compare Trubisky to in terms of physical traits, style of play, and what I expect out of them in terms of ability to win a game are guys like Wentz and Goff. In terms of production, Wentz was at 33 TD and 7 Int in 11 games, which translates to 48 TD / 10 Int. Goff was at 28 TD / 7 Int. They have both had some nice success winning a high percentage of regular season games in their second seasons. I’d personally say they are both better than Cousins and Stafford by a wide margin. I see Trubisky as a bit more like Wentz both in terms of skill set, and expect him to be a top 5 type guy once he gets rolling.

 

So that's the level of head over heels Kool aid I'm on with Trubisky when I say he'll be markedly better than the non-Rodgers QBs in the division. It's tough to do too much with his numbers from last year since he was so hamstrung by the embarrassing lack of tools both in terms of offensive coaching creativity and skill position players. But he showed an ability to protect the ball in the same way as those other two guys with his 28 TD / 4 Int ratio leading into the bowl game in his year at UNC. And look.at.these.highlights.

 

https://twitter.com/i/moments/982075388758147072

(credit to David on the original post)

 

Try and tell me this there’s no way this guy is way better than Kirk Cousins or Matt Stafford. You never know how it'll shake out, but all I can do is call it like I see it and I see some great QB tools there. And then when you watch those highlights remembering that Nagy made Alex Smith the best deep passer in the league. And consider what level of confidence you have in the offensive tools the Bears have put together.

 

I could be wrong for sure, but I think we’re in for a big jump out of Trubisky. Not to Wentz style 50 TD MVP craziness but more a 35+ TD type of thing (counting running TDs) on a real nice interception ratio. Plenty of rushing yards. So still well into the top 10 in fantasy QBs, but for me his biggest difference will be in his putting games away. Since he hasn’t had much NFL footage that would support the concept that he's this great winner, I’ll just leave this here. Seems like he's got the winner thing in him somewhere if he's able to make these types of plays with the game on the line. He didn't make them last year, but again...that was some embarrassingly bad coaching and the receiver/TE position was a smoking crater.

 

[Derwood]

Winners? Losers?

 

*massiveeyerollgif*

[David]

I'm preaching to the choir here, but I can't believe how much of the general football world (fans and punditry) don't realize that the Bears are going to be good this year.

 

They had a lot of good pieces in place that were overshadowed by some of the worst lineup black holes I've ever seen at the NFL level, which allowed teams to gameplan to account for the good players too easily. That's not the same as having no good players.

 

There's gonna be a lot of "breakout" years for guys now that the entire 22 is competent enough to be accounted for. God I cannot wait to see what the rest of this defense can do when Mack is commanding a double-team at all times and they're playing with a lead.

 

some national media guys have them as a team on the rise but you're right they're being slept on big time

 

reminds me of going into the 2015 cubs season

 

still good value on them in vegas last i checked. i might place some small bets on those long odds for the hell of it.

 

Bears went from 100-1 odds to 60-1 odds to win the Super Bowl with the Mack trade

 

friend placed a small bet for me at 100-1 last night at mandalay

 

50-1 to win the conference, 8-1 to win the division

[BigbadB]

 

Cousins and Stafford had on average 97 QB ratings the last 3 years with a 3:1 TD to INT rate (85:30) while throwing for about 4,500 yards per season. Trubisky is not better than that by a large margin.

Gentlemen’s bet on who scores the most fantasy points between the three in a standard league?

This is actually a pretty lazy response that I made on my phone while I was out. The reason I pick Trubisky over the other two is that I think he’s going to prove to be a winner where the other two have been losers up to this point in their careers. So it was silly for me to try to frame the comparison in terms of fantasy ratings, as it would have been silly for me to frame it in terms of QBR.

 

Cousins has a 26-30-1 record with a playoff record of 0-1. Stafford also hasn’t won a playoff game and leading into the 2017 season he had a record of 5-46 against teams over .500. I could probably find it updated for the most recent season but I can’t imagine the 9-7 playoff missing season moved the needle that much.

 

Cousins and Stafford have had some decent enough seasons, but a lot of both of their yards have been wracked up in garbage time trying to catch up. The last two years Stafford has averaged 26.5 TD / 10 Int. Cousins has average 26 TD / 12.5 Int. That is middle of the road production, in my opinion. Especially considering how long they’ve been in the league and in their current offenses. Cousins maybe hasn’t had that much to work with but he really hasn’t elevated the team. Stafford has basically been junk, IMO. Not a dumpster fire but not elite production and not capable of regular winning in any capacity despite having consistently good offensive skill players and scheme plus an intermittently good defense.

 

The guys I’d compare Trubisky to in terms of physical traits, style of play, and what I expect out of them in terms of ability to win a game are guys like Wentz and Goff. In terms of production, Wentz was at 33 TD and 7 Int in 11 games, which translates to 48 TD / 10 Int. Goff was at 28 TD / 7 Int. They have both had some nice success winning a high percentage of regular season games in their second seasons. I’d personally say they are both better than Cousins and Stafford by a wide margin. I see Trubisky as a bit more like Wentz both in terms of skill set, and expect him to be a top 5 type guy once he gets rolling.

 

So that's the level of head over heels Kool aid I'm on with Trubisky when I say he'll be markedly better than the non-Rodgers QBs in the division. It's tough to do too much with his numbers from last year since he was so hamstrung by the embarrassing lack of tools both in terms of offensive coaching creativity and skill position players. But he showed an ability to protect the ball in the same way as those other two guys with his 28 TD / 4 Int ratio leading into the bowl game in his year at UNC. And look.at.these.highlights.

 

https://twitter.com/i/moments/982075388758147072

(credit to David on the original post)

 

Try and tell me this there’s no way this guy is way better than Kirk Cousins or Matt Stafford. You never know how it'll shake out, but all I can do is call it like I see it and I see some great QB tools there. And then when you watch those highlights remembering that Nagy made Alex Smith the best deep passer in the league. And consider what level of confidence you have in the offensive tools the Bears have put together.

 

I could be wrong for sure, but I think we’re in for a big jump out of Trubisky. Not to Wentz style 50 TD MVP craziness but more a 35+ TD type of thing (counting running TDs) on a real nice interception ratio. Plenty of rushing yards. So still well into the top 10 in fantasy QBs, but for me his biggest difference will be in his putting games away. Since he hasn’t had much NFL footage that would support the concept that he's this great winner, I’ll just leave this here. Seems like he's got the winner thing in him somewhere if he's able to make these types of plays with the game on the line. He didn't make them last year, but again...that was some embarrassingly bad coaching and the receiver/TE position was a smoking crater.

 

 

The Bears top receiver last year wasn't good enough to make the Vikings roster this year. I'm looking forward to see what Trubisky can do do with some actual weapons.

[itisallpartoftheplan]

 

Oh ok.

[Wilson A2000]

 

Oh ok.

 

I thought Mike Florio was smarter than that. I guess he was just writing a contrarian article because everyone else loves the trade. Florio forgot that you can turn around a team quickly in the NFL and you never know if another team would have traded for Mack between now and next year. The Jets probably would have got Mack this weekend if the Bears decided to wait. You only make a move like this if it guarantees a Super Bowl this year? No.

[CoolHandLuke]

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read. Same price, same cost in picks, but don't have him for this year? Why?

 

Not to mention the other teams that probably would have traded for him if the Bears said "we'll wait until next spring".

[Thrilho]

Winners? Losers?

 

*massiveeyerollgif*

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches?

 

We watched Cutler for years miss on down field passes when he just needed 5 yards to keep a drive alive at the end of the game. Stafford’s win numbers against good teams are atrocious. If there were an easy to navigate stat site like FG for football we could probably see how many times Stafford was within a TD with 5 minutes or so to go and still lost. The Lions have had decent enough teams and head coaches where Stafford’s record is largely on him.

 

This isn’t baseball, where we’re debating the validity/weight of performance in clutch situations. In the NBA and for QBs in the NFL there are guys who consistently get the job done at the end of the game when it matters and those who don’t. It’s all a spectrum, so if the eye roll is for me viewing things in binary terms then maybe ok, but Stafford is at one end of that spectrum for me. We’ll see what Cousins can do with this talent but he’s going to have to prove he can go from a career sub-.500 QB to one who wins this division.

[Wilson A2000]

Thrilho, Washington and Detroit combined have had well-below average defenses the last few years. I believe Washington had just one averagish defense the last three years. Hard to hold a QB’s record against him with defenses like they’ve had when they’ve put up really good numbers on their own.

 

I hope Trubisky has a great year and he may well have one, but you can’t expect him to beat the kind of numbers that Stafford and Cousins have put up with so little work to go off.

[Bertz]

Winners? Losers?

 

*massiveeyerollgif*

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches?

 

We watched Cutler for years miss on down field passes when he just needed 5 yards to keep a drive alive at the end of the game. Stafford’s win numbers against good teams are atrocious. If there were an easy to navigate stat site like FG for football we could probably see how many times Stafford was within a TD with 5 minutes or so to go and still lost. The Lions have had decent enough teams and head coaches where Stafford’s record is largely on him.

 

This isn’t baseball, where we’re debating the validity/weight of performance in clutch situations. In the NBA and for QBs in the NFL there are guys who consistently get the job done at the end of the game when it matters and those who don’t. It’s all a spectrum, so if the eye roll is for me viewing things in binary terms then maybe ok, but Stafford is at one end of that spectrum for me. We’ll see what Cousins can do with this talent but he’s going to have to prove he can go from a career sub-.500 QB to one who wins this division.

 

I think you're wish casting here. Stafford's perfectly fine in the clutch

 

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/ranking-matthew-stafford-s-eight-fourth-quarter-comebacks-in-2016-020117

 

And I'd bet Cousins would do similarly given the same situations. I'd guess that, much like in baseball, clutch in football is just talent meeting opportunity with a splash of luck.

[Thrilho]

Thrilho, Washington and Detroit combined have had well-below average defenses the last few years. I believe Washington had just one averagish defense the last three years. Hard to hold a QB’s record against him with defenses like they’ve had when they’ve put up really good numbers on their own.

 

I hope Trubisky has a great year and he may well have one, but you can’t expect him to beat the kind of numbers that Stafford and Cousins have put up with so little work to go off.

Their defenses haven’t been THAT bad. Cousins hasn’t had that long in the league to prove it and he hasn’t had great teams around him, so I’ll give him a bit of a wait and see. But here are Detroit’s rankings on scoring defense since Stafford came into the league: 32, 19, 24, 27, 15, 3, 23, 13, 21. So while they only had one really good year, they’ve had an average of the 15th best scoring defense over the past five years. In Cousins’ three full years starting, Washington has been 19, 18, and 27. Average of 21st best.

 

So yeah not the best, but it’s not like the NFC east and north have been powerhouses over the course of their respective careers. There have been opportunities to take the team on their backs.

 

But when you say they’ve put up such good numbers on their own, what numbers are you talking about? Yards? I personally care a lot more about TD/Int. Last year Cousins threw 13 interceptions, good for 7th in the league. As I said earlier, he’s averaged 12.5 over the last three years. He was 8th in TDs last year, 13th in 2016 and tied for 12th in 2015.

 

I don’t consider that elite production that is out of reach of Trubisky, or such great production that you can blame it all the on the defense. Trubisky is getting dropped into an offense where Alex Smith had 26 TD / 5 Int. I don’t know what that would get him in terms of fantasy points or QBR, but that’s what “elevate your team” production looks like for me. Look down the QB lines for the last few years and check out how many QBs have had 25+ TDs with under 10 picks each year. It’s kind of a lot. That kind of ratio is what I’m expecting here. Don’t care at all about the yards.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Thrilho

[Thrilho]

Winners? Losers?

 

*massiveeyerollgif*

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches?

 

We watched Cutler for years miss on down field passes when he just needed 5 yards to keep a drive alive at the end of the game. Stafford’s win numbers against good teams are atrocious. If there were an easy to navigate stat site like FG for football we could probably see how many times Stafford was within a TD with 5 minutes or so to go and still lost. The Lions have had decent enough teams and head coaches where Stafford’s record is largely on him.

 

This isn’t baseball, where we’re debating the validity/weight of performance in clutch situations. In the NBA and for QBs in the NFL there are guys who consistently get the job done at the end of the game when it matters and those who don’t. It’s all a spectrum, so if the eye roll is for me viewing things in binary terms then maybe ok, but Stafford is at one end of that spectrum for me. We’ll see what Cousins can do with this talent but he’s going to have to prove he can go from a career sub-.500 QB to one who wins this division.

 

I think you're wish casting here. Stafford's perfectly fine in the clutch

 

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/ranking-matthew-stafford-s-eight-fourth-quarter-comebacks-in-2016-020117

 

And I'd bet Cousins would do similarly given the same situations. I'd guess that, much like in baseball, clutch in football is just talent meeting opportunity with a splash of luck.

So you're going to use an article about Stafford's one playoff season where he's team won 9 games while Stafford put up 24 TD / 10 Int and lost in the wild card round for your example about why he's good in the clutch? And he was losing at some point in 8 of those 9 wins? I didn't read the article, so maybe there's something that would convince me that Stafford makes the playoffs again at some point in his career, but probably not.

 

And obviously, we're just going to have to disagree on the impact of QB performance in the 4th quarter.

[Wilson A2000]

...check out how many QBs have had 25+ TDs with under 10 picks each year. It’s kind of a lot. That kind of ratio is what I’m expecting here. Don’t care at all about the yards.

 

You said Trubisky would be the best non-Rodgers QB in the NFC North by a large margin. He’d have to have an over 100 rating with 35 TDs and 10 INTs. Yeah, I’ll take that bet.

[Bertz]

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches?

 

We watched Cutler for years miss on down field passes when he just needed 5 yards to keep a drive alive at the end of the game. Stafford’s win numbers against good teams are atrocious. If there were an easy to navigate stat site like FG for football we could probably see how many times Stafford was within a TD with 5 minutes or so to go and still lost. The Lions have had decent enough teams and head coaches where Stafford’s record is largely on him.

 

This isn’t baseball, where we’re debating the validity/weight of performance in clutch situations. In the NBA and for QBs in the NFL there are guys who consistently get the job done at the end of the game when it matters and those who don’t. It’s all a spectrum, so if the eye roll is for me viewing things in binary terms then maybe ok, but Stafford is at one end of that spectrum for me. We’ll see what Cousins can do with this talent but he’s going to have to prove he can go from a career sub-.500 QB to one who wins this division.

 

I think you're wish casting here. Stafford's perfectly fine in the clutch

 

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/ranking-matthew-stafford-s-eight-fourth-quarter-comebacks-in-2016-020117

 

And I'd bet Cousins would do similarly given the same situations. I'd guess that, much like in baseball, clutch in football is just talent meeting opportunity with a splash of luck.

So you're going to use an article about Stafford's one playoff season where he's team won 9 games while Stafford put up 24 TD / 10 Int and lost in the wild card round for your example about why he's good in the clutch? And he was losing at some point in 8 of those 9 wins? I didn't read the article, so maybe there's something that would convince me that Stafford makes the playoffs again at some point in his career, but probably not.

 

And obviously, we're just going to have to disagree on the impact of QB performance in the 4th quarter.

 

I really do not care enough about this meatball opinion you have to go back and forth. I just think it's funny that you're going on and on and on about how Stafford is "not a winner" and how good quarterbacks get it done in the fourth quarter and Stafford doesn't when he literally won 8 games in one year via fourth quarter heroics.

[Derwood]

Winners? Losers?

 

*massiveeyerollgif*

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches?

 

Lucky? No. A combination of talent along with great teams and coaching? Yes.

 

Had Brady been drafted by the Browns or Bucs do you think he has the same career numbers? Same number of Super Bowls?

 

Come on, dude, don't die on this hill

[Thrilho]

I really do not care enough about this meatball opinion you have to go back and forth. I just think it's funny that you're going on and on and on about how Stafford is "not a winner" and how good quarterbacks get it done in the fourth quarter and Stafford doesn't when he literally won 8 games in one year via fourth quarter heroics.

 

Ok, that’s a fair response for my dismissive tone on your first post. So in the article there, the teams that Stafford had the comeback wins against were the Bears, Rams, Jaguars, Redskins, Colts, Eagles, and Vikings (twice). No winning teams and combined records of 49-78-1. That’s why I’m trying to look at it with a whole career approach. That 5-46 against above .500 teams is really bad.

 

But I decided to do a little research to see if I was way off on my expectations for TD/Int ratio. I looked at the top 30 QBs in TDs each year for the last three, then ranked them on TD/Int ratio. The cut off for top 10 each year was about 2.8 TD for every pick, top 5 are generally in the 4-6 range (except for Brady’s 14:1 in 2016).

 

Stafford has had a ratio of 2.6:1 over the past three years. In 2017, that would rank him 11th just ahead of Watson and Dalton. His actual ranking for 2017 was 8th. It was an above average year for him, as his average ranking over the past three years has been around 11th.

 

Cousins has had an average ratio of 2.3:1 over the past three years. In 2017, that would rank him just behind Watson, ahead of Dalton. But it was a down year for him and he actually only pulled in a 2.1, which was good for 14th.

 

This conversation about Cousins and Stafford and winners/losers seems tiresome, but if the Bears are going to make the playoffs they are going to have to win a decent number of division games. And more than any other factor, it will come down to Cousins, Stafford, and Trubisky. So in my mind the question of how good Cousins and Stafford really are is an interesting one.

 

Annnnd thank goodness they got out of that inning. The time spent on the research project seems a lot more fun if it was done during a Cubs win.

[Thrilho]

Winners? Losers?

 

*massiveeyerollgif*

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches?

 

Lucky? No. A combination of talent along with great teams and coaching? Yes.

 

Had Brady been drafted by the Browns or Bucs do you think he has the same career numbers? Same number of Super Bowls?

 

Come on, dude, don't die on this hill

I'm good with the hill. I may not be articulating my point in the right way, and may be unintentionally setting up a strawman argument for the opposing side. So I'll try and tamp back hyperbole and use examples.

 

Yeah, Brady needed some support, but in the big moments he has made big plays consistently. It's a spectrum, and I consider Brady to be the best I've seen at making the plays necessary at the end to win the game. I don't consider Manning to be a loser, but in their head to head games I thought Brady outperformed Manning in key moments and that most of the difference in the game. I felt like the Colts frequently had a better team but Brady elevated his over the other QB.

 

But that doesn't mean I think super bowl wins or "clutch" are everything. I have a ton of respect for Rodgers as a QB, and don't consider him to be a choker or loser or anything despite only the one SB sin. I just consider the NFL to be a bit like the NBA. If you can get a truly good QB you dominate the division for years and have some shots at a super bowl. Get a high mid-level guy like an Andy Dalton and you're not really going to be in the mix for winning your league each year.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Matthew Stafford does not have a record against winning teams, losing teams, or .500, because the NFL is a competition among football teams and he is not, as a single individual, allowed to enter the league and does not appear on any opponent's schedule.

[Thrilho]

Matthew Stafford does not have a record against winning teams, losing teams, or .500, because the NFL is a competition among football teams and he is not, as a single individual, allowed to enter the league and does not appear on any opponent's schedule.

Cool, I think his team will have an 0-2 record against the Bears this year